Anna Campbell and Another Cool R.A. Tool

Hey, if you're a Regency freak, you should head over to Title Magic today where romance author Anna Campbell talks about her long road to publication and how writing contests got here there. And she's giving away a signed copy of her new book, Untouched, to the person whose comment she likes the best!

And Library Person discovered What Should I Read Next while slogging through del.ic.ious this morning! It's a U.K. site that takes its users' lists of favorite books and uses them to create reading suggestions. Seems like it works a little bit like Library Thing, but it's a little simpler to navigate. The search bar is right there in the front.

After 24 Things, or w00t!

So, did you guys hear that Miriam Webster's #1 word of the year is w00t? W00t. W00t?! Okay, I admit, I use this word on a regular basis because I play World of Warcraft with Morgan and my brother and future sister-in-law and a bunch of friends. You pwn an Orc, you yell w00t. That's just what you do. But #1 word of the year? I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, I really don't use the word in everyday conversation. I'm sure some people do, but I guess I'm part of the old crusty era of gamers who prefer to use old and crusty English in real life. It makes me wonder when we'll officially be changing the spelling of the word "you're" to "ur."

So, even though I'm done with the 24 Things, I don't think I want to let this blog go dark yet. Right now, I'm just writing for myself and whichever 24 Things participants found me interesting enough to actually read what I thought, but, as we go forward and integrate more web 2.0 tools into our jobs, our blogs just might have just enough potential to become a little something more. You never know!

Thing #24, or Done!

You know, I'm usually not a smug person. But when this program was introduced to us at Staff Development Day, I figured it would be a rehash of all of the technology I used anyway and that I'd breeze right through it. Boy, was I wrong! I think my prior knowledge helped a little, but most of the time I was learning right along with everyone else and having a great time.

In addition to the Things, I learned that I wasn't utilizing the technology I did use to its fullest extent. I was ignorant of how wide the world of podcasts really was. I had no idea what a wiki could really do. RSS feeds save me so much free time now! And although there are some tools I don't see myself ever using again, *glancing sideways at technorati* just knowing about them has enriched my knowledge base. I know I have them as resources if ever I need them. And that's a good thing.

Not only did I enjoy the contents of the program, I'm also thankful it came along when it did. The universe has a way of smooshing things together when I need those things simultaneously. And now that I find myself in the position of having to self promote, both during and after the contest (Dead Chessie comes out in June!), I have more tools at my disposal. Funny how things work out.

I would love to see another program like this in future. Not just on technology tools, but on other things that would help us in the course of our everyday work. A L2.0 style program might help us a little with cross training when we can't always leave our positions to work in other areas.

Thanks, Jerianne, for putting this one together. You rock!

Thing #23

Before this Thing I usually just used podcasts related to sites that I was already visiting. Like NPR's podcasts and online archives and Holly Lisle's podcasts on writing. I'd never used a podcast directory before. I found that I enjoyed Podcast Alley the most purely for aesthetic reasons. I got a lot of the same results from the different directory searches.

I added Holly's podcast and one I found called The Kissy Bits: Romance Writing Without Cooties. Figured I could learn something about the industry now that the Anna books are considered paranormal romance.

I was really surprised at the sheer amount of podcasts and the wide range of subjects. For some reason I had it in my head that podcasts were for techy people on obscure subjects or for music aficionados. But there are cooking podcasts, and booky podcasts, and political podcasts. I don't know that I'm ready to create one of my own. Nobody wants to listen to my weird, high, girlie voice! :-) Maybe I could talk Morgan the Telecommunications Superhero into broadcasting for me if I have something to say in that medium.

Oh! I almost forgot! I was searching for short story markets right before I started this Thing and found Escape Pod. They pay $100.00 for SF stories to be narrated and turned into podcasts. They maintain sister sites for Horror and Fantasy as well. They actively look for stories that are quick in pace and aren't overly wordy or description heavy so that they'll sound good in audio format, which is the kind of spec fic I like to read in print anyway. Anyone who enjoys audio books and speculative fiction should try 'em out!

Thing #22

I love READS! I usually use it for e-books, but that's another post (as I learned the first time I tried to write about this Thing!:-)

READS does two things. It allows our patrons to use us when we're closed, when they're on the go, or when they can't come to us. Anecdotally, READS has been a big hit with several Smyrna patrons. I have a stay-at-home mom who actually jumped up and down and squealed when I told her about the service (to the chagrin of the elderly lady standing behind her). And every time she and her children come in, she tells me how much she enjoys it. One of my audio patrons, who was notorious for extreme late fines and forgetting to return discs and cassettes with cases, now almost exclusively uses READS. It's made his life a lot more convenient. Not many of our truck drivers have made the switch yet. Most of them still have cassette players in their big rigs. But I have a feeling that'll change when they become comfortable with MP3 technology and personal FM radio transmitters. I'm working on it!

READS also fleshes out our audiobook collection quite nicely. Audiobooks can cost anywhere between $20.00-$140.00. Working within a budget means I'm not always able to order everything our patrons will want. So I take care of the certain-to-be high demand items and the essential items first, and after that, I can pick and choose what to fill our collection with. If READS or another branch already owns a title I'm considering, I feel pretty confident to choose something else on my list, knowing that I can refer our patrons to READS.

I tell patrons that, once you have overdrive installed, browsing READS and checking out books is as easy as shopping on Amazon. Only instead of your credit card information, you enter your library card number. And READS has an amazing selection! Just browsing the new additions list I saw I Am America and So Can You, The 47th Samurai, A Lick of Frost, and Eat, Pray, Love (which I've been recommending to patrons after I heard the author do a reading on NPR, months before Oprah! But I'm not bitter.)

Thing #21

I love Bob Ross. I don't even paint, but I love him! He's so wacky, and his outlook on art seems so pure compared to the stereotypical blocked, agonized, tortured writer or painter. Art doesn't have to come from pain. It can. But it doesn't have to for it to be real.

Speaking of art from pain, my hubby gets a kick out of James the Nintendo Nerd. JtNN rants and raves as he works his way through difficult levels, critiquing the games as he plays them. His frustration and creative use of profanity is hilarious. But if you're easily offended by language, you might want to give him a miss.

I can see us using online video to do a variety of things. Like offering select storytimes online. That way non-patrons could see the wonderful things that Sandy and Sherry offer for kids here at Smyrna. And children who are sick, and shouldn't come to storytime and expose everyone, can stay home and still enjoy the program.

It might also be fun to try a Reading Rainbow style book presentation for kids, adults, and YA. We could feature staff picks this way as well as invite patrons to participate. It might be a thrill to see them online, and we could showcase some of the good stuff in our collection. It's another way to handsell.

Thing #20

I think I'm in an organizational mood this week. I chose Backpack to explore.

I was impressed with its simplicity. It looks like it's designed to work like a spiral-bound notebook, only more organized. You can add pictures, links, documents, and check-off lists to a single page. There's a fantastic looking calendar there as well, but you have to be a paying member to utilize it.

Backpack is a great example of a 2.0 tool that probably wouldn't work well for us. The calendar is shareable. But so are our Outlook calendars. The pages are sharable, but we have our wiki and our server. But for personal use, or for work projects one wouldn't need to share with others, this would be a great way to keep organized. And it's something we can recommend to our patrons who want to keep track of their reading but don't like the social aspects of LibraryThing.

I was pretty psyched to see Pandora on there! Again, this is probably not a very good example of library-related 2.0 tools, but it's one that I've used for a couple years after our legendary Sam strong armed me into trying it. (I'm gonna get an F on this assignment!) It's like readers' advisory for music. You type in your favorite song. Or your favorite artist. And Pandora will create a playlist for you based on hundreds of different musical attributes. You listen as you work or play on your computer. If you like a song, give it a thumbs up. If you don't, thumbs down, and Pandora uses that input to further tailor your playlist. I have found so many great bands and performers this way - and it's so much more refreshing than traditional radio! No ads, minimal repeats, no managers or publicists in station pockets, no annoying DJs (unless you're annoyed with yourself.) Most definitely recommended.

Thing #19

I admit it. I have a Myspace. I resisted for years. I mocked it. I rolled my eyes. But when it came right down to it, when I needed a promotion tool, where did I go? Yeah, that's right. Hypocrite Mel.

I haven't done much in the way of spamming other's spaces to get friends. Most of my Myspace friends are my buds in real life. But there's a patron or two, some authors I really like and want to keep up with, and a couple of strangers. I'll do more with it someday. :-)

So, I went exploring. The first place I went was bookspoke. I read a little bit about it and discovered on their "if you're a writer" page, that they're also a vanity publisher. That made me think twice about joining because, chances are, their social networking site is a way to snare unpublished writers into using their services. Better to use Shelfari or LibraryThing.

I thought it was pretty spiffy that there were age-appropriate SN sites out there. I kind of wished for a thirty-something one. (Okay, I know I'm not quite there yet, but give me a few months!) Stereotypical teenagers got on my nerves back when I was one, and it's just gotten worse over the years. And so has the spelling. Gather has a more mature writing base, but a lot of people on there only post for points which can be redeemed for gift certificates and that can be just as annoying.

Facebook was interesting, but I don't know if it's really for me. I found a few high school classmates and lots of people who were at ISU when I was there who I didn't know. Facebook seemed a little cold to me, but it was refreshing not to have a bunch of ads shoved at me.

I thought it was interesting how many of the friends and comments on the library Myspace profiles came from published writers, intending, I suppose, to reach library patrons and readers through the library.

Surprisingly, I have a bit of a pessimistic streak when it comes to libraries and Myspace. I'm not too confident that we'll reach the army of teens using our computer lab to check their profiles. We have to hit a certain level of cool. Or, in other words, we have to be serving them adequately already for them to want to add us and keep track of us. I think we can do this other ways. Who I think we will reach are the non-teen Myspacers as well as local writers seeking to promote themselves to our patrons. Folks who already use us and love us. And that's something valuable. We can blog. We can post schedule changes and program announcements in bulletins. We can announce new releases and, maybe, link to ibistro.

Thing #18

Since we started L2.0, nothing has sent me into the throes of technolust faster than Zoho. When I'm at home, on my computer, I have at least five programs open at all times. Minimum. When I'm working on a book, I keep track of notes in multiple word documents and I can never locate the tidbits I need when I need them (and I'm SO not paying upward of a hundred bucks for notetaking/organizational program for writers). There's even a Zoho wiki option so you can have your own private one, or share one. I'm most excited about the Zoho Notebook. I can have separate books for separate projects or subjects and I can see them all at once in the "my books" list. No more little word documents to keep track of. And I can move pages around, shift text from page to page until the notes are in the order I want them. Shoot, I could probably outline novels this way, a page a scene.

I don't know that I'd use Zoho writer for writing the actual manuscripts, though. Although I love the idea of backing up my work online, I don't fully understand the privacy issues involved yet. One of the main concepts of online productivity is document sharing. And I don't know that I'd want to share my crappy rough drafts with people. It doesn't seem like a blog or wiki where everything you post is public. But yet, other than Zoho Wikis, I didn't see sharing options. I'll have to play around with it a little more before I'm confident enough to switch entirely.

Thing # 17

I like our wiki! Adding to it was a lot easier than I expected it would be, so I sort of went nuts and added the whole Money section to the circulation manual. It kind of gave me a giggle when PBwiki asked if I wanted it to clean up the Microsoft Word text. Because I'm a big geek that way.

I tried searching for "claims return" just to see what I'd get. My only result was the missing/damaged/lost outline. I then searched for a more general term. One that I knew was in there at least once. "Money." I got 8 results ranging from the text in the two of the check in sections, and the rest from the money sections.

I think this'll be a great way to put all of the stuff that we have scattered across the server and put it one place for everyone's reference. I know I have things that I use every day that occasionally comes in handy for someone else on staff, but most people are too considerate to go spelunking in my folder. For example, the Smyrna Gift slips we use for donations we want to catalog. Or the materials from the readers' advisory for paraprofessionals presentation I gave a few years ago. I would love to stick that on there for people to add to!

Oh, I did notice that it doesn't log you out when you close the browser. So I'll have to remember to log out beforehand.

I have a feeling, though, that the only way for us to get the staff members who aren't participating in 2.0 because they're uncomfortable with technology to use the wiki is to make the information contained in it only accessible through the wiki and nowhere else. If it's in paper form in their work area, those folks are going to use that instead, potentially using an outdated policy or form. Although, I hope they prove me wrong! We'll definitely be working on it at Smyrna! :-)

Again, I would love to see a book talk resource, and I think a wiki would work just as well as a blog would, if not better. It would be searchable, could be split up into genres and subjects, and more than one person could post their thoughts and ideas instead of being stuck with one opinion from one person in a review of a book.

Surprise!

They pimped my book cart! Or work cart. Just, you know, don't look at the stuff on top of the cart. I'm a little behind. *grin*

The shiny things on either side are chocolates, which we distributed and consumed after lunch yesterday. I really do have the best co-workers on the planet. Actually, they're less like co-workers and more family, with cheers, squabbles, and everything in between. I love you guys!

Thing # 16

Before this Thing, I had a fuzzy idea of what wikis were, but I didn't really stop to think about their applications aside from wikipedia. They always seemed too social for my personal use. Although, I'm pondering them in relation to my writing. Having a book talk wiki might be a fun promotion tool for an author. Or a writer who's trying to build name recognition pre-publication. And I don't think it's been done yet. At least not by a writer. Huh.

Oh, sorry. Tangent.

Library wikis! As far as I can see, there are two basic library wiki types. The internal staff-based one, and the external patron and staff-based one. From the examples I've seen, in the discovery resources and as well as the TLA staff development workshops at Brentwood, both types can be extremely useful in communication and resource management. I think my favorite was the subject guide wiki. Boiled down, it's like putting the book displays online for folks to access all the time, with card catalog information build right in. There were even librarian approved informational links on the same page with the books, combining print and Internet resources! *mops up drool* And when I went to the SJCPL website from the wiki, I discovered that they have a library video game club. With a blog. *sidelong glance at Al* Double Dash tournaments? DDR? I could see luring in the underserved YA population with video games, and staff could use their own equipment. The library wouldn't have to buy anything. Must file that idea for later.

Most of the wikis I found were fantastic. There were a couple, though, that I found to be lacking in cohesion. At least for my little pea brain. The Library Outreach Wiki, for example, seemed like an organized hodgepodge of things, sometimes in outline form, sometimes written out. All wikis are a work in progress, but the LOW seemed like it didn't really have a nucleus.

Because of the SJCPL subject guide wiki, I can really see how this little toy could help with readers' advisory. (Oh, come on, you knew it was coming!) I really liked the idea of the Book Lovers Wiki, but I would love to see the concept move away from reviews and more toward a conversation. I don't know if a wiki or a blog would be a better tool for that. But I'll bet we could integrate a book review wiki section to help manage our winter reading program. Just a thought. :-)

Thing #15

I grew up in a family who took the idea of "one day at a time" and turned it into a fine art, so it's always been difficult for me to look too far into the future. It's strange, then, that Dr. Schultz's article "To a Temporary Place in Time..." was the one article out of our discovery resources that caught my attention. Or, more accurately, my imagination.

Web 2.0. Library 2.0. These things aren't our future. These things are our present. Our patrons are already blogging, social networking, YouTubing, playing with pictures and Wikis, tagging and collaborating. Participating. Active. To reach them and keep them, we're going to have to learn this. We're going to have to be out there, participating with them.

Library 2.0 may be the newest way to provide services to our patrons, but it's also a fantastic way to communicate with them. We circulation clerks get to meet, greet, and serve everyone who comes into the building. What an opportunity to use our skills and personal knowledge bases! Unfortunately, we're limited by the building. We ONLY get to meet, greet, and serve the folks who come into the building. Using library 2.0 tools and philosophies, we can reach a wider range of people. We can use our skills, the same ones we use at the desk, to serve cardholders who only occasionally visit, who can't always attend programming when we can offer it (Story time video feeds! Online book discussion groups!), and to introduce non-users to our services and staff, and entice them to utilize the library. We'd be at the desk, but we'd be free from the desk as well. Out in the community. I see this as essential for a library with a small staff who might not always be able to do this in person.

I think I've wandered away from my original paragraph, but as a 2.0 user who has been frustrated by the limits of her location in relation to how she performs her job, I feel that it's important for us to realize that 2.0 is here, right now. The society we serve is in the midst of it, and if we don't learn how to use these tools, we'll fall behind. If we can't engage members of our community in this way, we'll loose them. That idea saddens me because, if we do lose them, they'll never get to experience the post-2.0 possibilites that Dr. Schultz outlined in her essay. The 3D library. Librarians as user evaluated content providers. The library as an information spa - an elegant respite for the patrons in which they can escape the daily grind and relax. These are exciting possibilities! But for us to get there, we have to take the 2.0 step. Even if we have to do it one day at a time.

Thing #14

I hadn't heard the statistic about the number of blogs doubling every 6 months! It makes me wonder how many actually endure. A lot of folks who use the service where I have my personal blog will write for a couple of months, enjoy the novelty, and then let them lapse. Some folks have more than one blog for different things like my buddy L. She has a personal blog, a writing blog, and a research blog. That would be an interesting study!


I consider myself a fairly internet savvy person. Not an expert by any means, but not a newbie either. Technorati overwhelms me. I think it's the sheer amount of stuff: search options, live updated blog feeds, user ratings, authority, tags, recommended search terms, popular blogs...and it's all right there smooshed into the main page, hitting me in the face all at once. I think I've gotten used to the simplicity of google. Logo followed by search box. Technorati is something I'm going to have to play with more, after completing this exercise, to truly feel comfortable with it.


When I did my "learning 2.0" search in posts, I got just that. Individual posts that mention learning 2.0 in the text, some of them on blogs like ours - individuals going through a learning 2.0 course (although, some only mentioned it in passing in an otherwise unrelated post). It was interesting to see how similar and different other L2.0 courses are from ours.


Searching in tags got similar results as the "posts" search, but the entries had been tagged with learning 2.0, so the results were a little bit more consistent.


Searching the directory got blogs dedicated to the subject of learning 2.0. Our lpls blog was #10 on the list!


There wasn't one blog on the "Top Favorited Blogs" list that I regularly read. Taking the list as a whole, it was easy to see the type of person who regularly uses Technorati. There was a disproportionate amount of tech, gadget, and hacker blogs. My favorite title had to be Kahlee's Blog: Never Give a Cheerleader a Keyboard. And I shouldn't have been surprised that there's a whole site dedicated to lolcat humor called icanhascheezburger.

I found it interesting that some of the most popular searches included Google, Yahoo, and Facebook, and I wonder if "searches" referred to the amount of content provided by these sites during other searches, searches for these sites (which seems kind of silly to me because one normally goes to google or yahoo to search for things), or a combination of elements.

I would consider this the least pleasurable Thing we've done so far. It seems a little too complicated for my every day needs, although it's good to know about Technorati if I need to do a more specialized search.

Thing #13

Delicious is a really interesting tool! I'd used Yahoo's bookmarking tool before, but it didn't have the tagging capability the way delicious does. Although you could separate them into categories, which was nice.


I did a little tag browsing. One of the most helpful ones to me was the imaging tag. I found all sorts of free stock photo sites. When I put up my personal web page for the contest, I threw it together with string and duct tape. Well, okay, wingdings and Paint. But still. I want to make it fancy schmancy but in a cheapo way. Some of the free photo sites are better than others, but I think I might be able to find something to play with.


I did find that a lot of the more general tags, like "books" "reading" "writing" were a little bit difficult to navigate. Books, for example, got me Amazon.com, a blog called "What Claudia Wore" and everything in between. Really, that's the main limitation I saw.


As far as on the job use, social bookmarking could be a really good way to keep all of the websites that our patrons use on a regular basis all in one place. Take the big mythology project: in Smyrna we have two different schools with lots of kids doing Greek mythology projects simultaneously. If the teachers let us know in advance we can have some reputable sites picked out and ready to go in addition to our print materials like pantheon.org.


Being the readers' advisory nut that I am, I always look for a way to incorporate the latest tools into it. We can use social bookmarking to put all of our R.A. resources in one place, systemwide, for the whole staff to use. Fantastic Fiction, AquaBrowser, Amazon, Library Thing, ETC. This way, too, if someone at a branch finds something nifty, they can bookmark it for the rest of us.


Normally I do the Discover More exercises for the 2.0 lessons. And I'll do this one eventually. But, although it is an extremely useful practice, I find tagging to be completely tedious and tend to put it off.

Thing #12

Rollyo is an interesting tool. I do a lot of research on publication markets and agents for writers' group as well as for my writing hobby. I added sites like ralan.com and Miss Snark's blog, the AAR, Predators and Editors, and Paperback Writer's blog, all who regularly post market news. I did some searching for cover letters and the majority of the results listed were from Miss Snark's "Is it Crap?" cover letter contest, but there were some really helpful ones as well. Instead of putting the search bar in this post, I stuck it on the blog as a page element so I can find it easier later.

I think Rollyo is perfect for individual use. As far as its library applications, I'll have to think about that. Our website, as it stands now, is pretty user friendly. If you're looking for computer classes, you click on "computer classes," etc. Although we could customize a search bar to include non-database websites that we know are reputable for our patrons. That way they don't have to slog through google results and they know they're getting good information.

Thing #11

I LOVE LibraryThing. Since I already have LT accounts, I figured I'd go ahead and use one of them for this post. Hope that's all right. :-)

I don't use Library Thing to catalog my home library. I'm always weeding and adding and am too lazy to keep up with it. I use LT to keep track of what I read. When I finish a book, I enter it into my LT with tags that include genre, year finished, whether it was good or not, part of a series or a single title, and sometimes some motif and theme information. I usually recommend LT to patrons who are upset or puzzled as to why we can't tell them what they checked out three years ago.

LT's book suggester is also a really good readers' advisory tool. It works similarly to What Do I Read Next's Help Me Find a Book tool, only the results come from titles that have been cataloged and tagged by LT users. It addresses WDIRN's limitations as the criteria used to tag and catalog the books include the subjective like tone and voice as well as the objective like genre and setting.

LT's strength is in its users. But that is its limitation as well. WDIRN has the power of library professionals behind it, where LT's power comes from housewives and plumbers, physicists and writers, factory workers and psychology professors. We can use the two tools in concert for the best results.

My 05/06 Library Thing has the most books and tags on it.

Thing #10

ned-flanders-simpsons_www-txt2pic-com
Originally uploaded by Melsie42

There are so many generators out there, it's overwhelming! I found myself wanting to play with things like random name generators instead of the image generators.

I attempted to Warholize the cat, but it didn't come out very well. So, for future reference, it's difficult to Warholize someone who has black and white fur.

Thing #9

I have to admit, I wasn't 100% comfortable using the non-bloglines RSS searching sites. Especially with Feedster. I did several "blogs" searches with that tool, and couldn't really tell what the results consisted of. I like to find out more information about a feed before I subscribe, but the links provided in the search were Feedster widgets and didn't actually lead anywhere when I clicked on it. Although the feeds themselves worked when I attempted to subscribe to one. I wouldn't recommend Feedster to an RSS beginner.

I liked Topix a lot, though. It weasels out information on a subject or location that you search for and sends everything it finds to the feed you subscribe to. After a few searches, I settled on a feed on my home town. Most of the articles on that subject come from local newspapers.

I found Technorati the easiest to use. You search for what you're looking for and the links go right to the text of the blog or news source so you can actually read more than a line or two before you subscribe. The advanced search link is right there on the front page so you don't have to go spelunking for it.

I found a few interesting library blogs:
Librarian in Black (I searched for this one by name as it was mentioned by Maria at the Wiki presentation)
http://www.librarybytes.com/
http://super_librarian.blogspot.com/
http://www.popgoesthelibrary.com/

The vast majority of the library blogs I found were written by professional librarians for professional librarians. I have to admit that when someone starts talking OCLC and ALA and MARC and statistics, my eyes glaze over and I lose interest. I did some searches for paraprofessionals and circulation, but most of those were interdepartmental blogs that really wouldn't mean anything to anyone but them unless one was searching for a something specific: checking to see what a particular circ staff does in response to claims returns, for example.

I was surprised at how few library blogs actually reached out to patrons. If my results are typical (And I hope they're not! Please tell me I screwed up! :-), blogging is a really underutilized outreach tool.

After searching for library tools and feeds, I did a search for book reviews and found some pretty nifty things.

Tennessee Text Wrestling
"an East Tennessee gal's thoughts on being a novelist, a reader, a cat wrangler, a biker chick, a pianist, and a nerd"

SciFiChick
News and Reviews

Geeks of Doom
(Really well designed blog on geekery!)

Reading Dirt
"Reading our way down the garden path: a site for the literary gardener."
(I thought this one was very unique! A review site dedicated to gardening books.)

Bookninja

2.0: It's a virus!

So, I e-mail my Aunt Marlene several times a week, and I told her about our 2.0 project. She wants to learn along with us! She's smart, funny, and very cool. Check her out at www.den-marstack.blogspot.com. :-)

Thing #8 and TLA workshops

As geeky as I profess to be, I have to admit that RSS is a new idea for me. The more I looked at the discovery resources, the more excited I became. If I don't count the friends list on my personal blog, I keep track of 38 feedable sites on my off hours. So, in addition to the blogroll I created for our course, I did one for my personal 'net reading as well. I've been using it for a couple of days now, and it's saved me a lot of time since I don't have to go to each website to check for updates.

I still have to add the rest of our staff blogs to my work blogroll, and add it to my sidebar, but I'll get that done this week. :-)

I had the opportunity to go to Brentwood with our Stephanie F for a few TLA workshops. We learned a lot! Like how not constructive it is to tell a patron to "get a grip" and how, according to the Myers-Briggs personality types, our differences don't have to cause conflict and can actually be compatible. The workshop that I was most excited about was "Should You Wiki?" taught by our former intern Maria Sochor who is now the assistant circulation supervisor at Brentwood. I know I'm thinking ahead here, but it was definitely food for thought!

Taken simply, wikis are collaborative websites, built and modified by the users. Maria showed us portions of Brentwood's private circulation wiki and how they use it to work more effectively. Being the book geek I am, I thought about its applications with readers' advisory and book talk as well as the potential for training for new and current employees.

Maria e-mailed the powerpoint presentation and the worksheets to me if anyone wants to look at it when we do Wikis later this fall. She also asked me to give her best to everyone.

Thing #7

Since Al and I shared a brain the other day, I decided to refrain from posting the same picture of Tom Tichenor that he did.

TeVa has a fantastic collection of old Tennessee-related postcards. This one is features one my favorite Nashville buildings (next to the Ryman, of course!) The Parthenon is a scale replica of the one in Athens, complete with a 12 ton, 41-foot-tall guilded statue of Athena. And I thought I was a big chick! Seriously, the whole structure is amazing. In addition to Athena, they have reproductions of the friezes (I think that's what they're called) lining the walls inside that room. And intangible detective Harvey Drago defeated a werewolf there. But you have to read Smyrna Writer member Mark Orr's book, Howling in the Park to see how that went down. :-)

Thing #6 or Bad Grammer for Cuteness

I could have played with those Flickr tools all day! But in the spirit of actually getting some work done today, I just used a pic of my cat that I had on my cell phone already to create one of those "lol cats."

Jane was about six months old when we learned that she was a huge cover stealer. I'd woken up on a Sunday morning just freezing to death. The comforter was balled up at the foot of the bed, and when I moved the top layer, Jane's sleepy face popped out. It was so funny at the time I had to take a picture.

And, for the record, it was physically painful to type that. I have a firm belief that all spelling errors should be accidental.

Thing #5 or, My Literal View From the Desk

This is what I get to look at all day.



Neat, huh? The picture doesn't give it justice at all because I was trying for an angle with the least amount of display case glare. Even so, it's difficult to believe that the entire thing is made of cardboard and felt with the exception of the greenery and animal figurines.



It was created in 1969 by Tom Tichenor who was a master puppet maker and performer at Nashville Public Library. When we moved from our Walnut Street location to Enon Springs in 1999, John Moore restored it. It's truly the centerpiece of our building. As I understand it, the architects took measurements of it before they began work and integrated it into their design. If you look closely, you can see the reflection of the authors' names that line the high walls all the way down our main hallway, which is another thing that, I believe, makes us unique.



I've worked in this building for six years now, and every time I look in the case, I see something new. The detail is amazing!

And this is Fred. One of our three remaining fish. Our storytime kids spend a lot of time at that tank, looking at the fish and talking to them. We never hear the fish talk back, but who knows!

This was a most interesting Thing! I have some pictures over at Photobucket, but I found Flickr easier to use. I decided to go with the "discover more" option instead of the regular discovery exercise. I have a few photos uploaded at http://www.flickr.com/photos/15261886@N08/.

I'm always excited by the concept of LPLS reaching out to patrons online as well as in person, and using Flickr could go a long way towards building an Internet presence for us. As we become a more visual world, we can show patrons our most recent book displays, how much fun we have at our special events, and integrate them in departmental or individual LPLS blogs. It all goes toward reminding our patrons to come back and reaching out to new patrons and enticing them to visit us.

Intro to Writers Group

Smyrna Writers met on Saturday, and as I was preparing for the session, it occurred to me that a lot of staff and folks in the community might not be aware of who we are and what we do.


Both Linebaugh and Smyrna have writers' groups. Rutherford Writers Ink meets the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month at 10:00 in the board room. Smyrna Writers meets the second and last (not 4th, but last) Saturday of the month at 1:00 p.m. in the library conference room. I'm not as familiar with RWInk's members as I am Smyrna's, so I'll probably focus more on our group and our procedures and members. It'd be great if a Linebaugh staff person blogged about their group so we can learn! :-)


It's important for staff to know that our writers' group isn't a class. Although I am the facilitator, I don't teach or instruct or otherwise hold myself up as the grand poobah of all writerly knowledge. We meet, we share work, we critique each other, we help each other with everything from choosing character names to defeating the block. Because we're in the library, we can do research during the meeting. And we encourage each other. This is, perhaps, our most important function. The only thing that makes me different from the rest of the group is that I have the responsibility of keeping track of our activities and making sure that meetings go smoothly.

It took a couple of years to develop an active group! But we now have a core of regular members and lots of people who come a few times a year and communicate with us via our Yahoo! group when they can't be at the meetings. I have permission from some group members to profile them here so that our library staff can get to know them and, through them, discover the value of what we do.

Shameless Self Promotion

You probably haven't heard, because I've kept it a huge secret (and I would absolutely NEVER harp on it!) *wink* but I'm one of the ten finalists the American Title contest. It's an American Idol type of contest sponsored by Dorchester Publishing and Romantic Times magazine. Dorchester publishes the winner's manuscript!

Voting starts today! And I'm asking everyone who knows me to vote and spread the word. :-) The direct link to the contest voting site is http://www.romantictimes.com/news_amtitle.php.

Hope everyone had a fantastic Monday!

Thing #4 (This is kind of like a Seuss book, isn't it?:-)

What Do I Read Next? is a fantastic readers' advisory tool available through TEL or Gale Group Databases. You can search for good reads by author, title, genre, subject, location, time period, character descriptor, character name, or full text. You can even look at lists of award winners or use the "Help me find a book" tool for recommendations based on criteria you provide about a favorite title.


I decided to explore the "Help me find a book" process to see what I could come up with. I used One For the Money, Janet Evanovich's first Plum novel. After you search for the title, HMFAB will provide a list of subject headings that you can tick off. I used "mystery" as the genre, "amateur detective" as the story type and "New Jersey" as a setting and got 51 good-quality results that include books by Sarah Shankman, Shelley Freydont, and Valerie Wolzien.

What do I Read Next? has a limitation, though. It's a computer program, so it lacks an understanding of the human x factor. It understands a request for mysteries set in New Jersey, for example, but not for authors who write in the same wry, wacky tone as Evanovich. It can't find books with the same snappy dialogue or the quality of tension between the romantic interests. One of the results from my search was Harlan Coban. He's gritty, action oriented, and definitely not wacky. But he writes mysteries set in New Jersey.

So that's where we come in. We can take the recommendations that we get from What Do I Read Next? and narrow it down further to tailor the recommendations for a patron. Or for ourselves for that matter. Either way, What Do I Read Next is a very helpful tool to discover your next favorite book.

Local Blogs

The blog links on the Thing #3 post were pretty spiffy. Knitting Betty was especially unique! But did you know that some of our patrons blog? Big Orange Michael is a Smyrna patron as is one half of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast (I can't take credit for finding that one, though. Sherry sent me the link a few weeks ago). Murfreesboro author (and former Smyrna staff member!) Alethea Kontis blogs at Magic and Misery as does Trish Milburn, the other Middle Tennessean who finaled in American Title. Although you guys are voting for me, right? *wink wink*

7 1/2 Habits

I'll start with the most difficult first: Habit #4 I'm on the low end of the spectrum educationally compared to a lot of our staff, and I'm a little bit ditzy. So it's difficult to maintain confidence in myself as a learner and to present myself as competent and knowledgeable.

And, I assume like most people, habit 7 1/2 is the easiest. Learning is play for me, and, since most of my education has been, and currently is, self-directed I can control the fun level. Boredom isn't a requirement for learning. For example, playing video games on a regular basis helps me learn technology on the job faster because each game has a different interface I have to learn before I can play. It makes me versatile. I recently read a novel co-written by Bill Bass, the man who started the Body Farm at U.T., and learned a lot about forensic anthropology. Same with the Faye Kellerman's Decker/Lazarus series and Orthodox Jewish life. I value the formal education I have had, but I seem to retain more information when I seek it out myself through leisure activities.